


nothing is forever

by seraphecda



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Depression, Ensemble - Freeform, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-06
Updated: 2017-04-06
Packaged: 2018-10-15 06:41:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10551788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seraphecda/pseuds/seraphecda
Summary: The Kamishiro mansion is gigantic, a relic of past marvels and a tome full of unraveled secrets. It's a home, in its own broken way, with enough rooms to accommodate all seven of the Barian lords.Seven, including Vector.





	

The Kamishiro mansion is gigantic, a relic of past marvels and a tome full of unraveled secrets. It's a home, in its own broken way, with enough rooms to accommodate all seven of the Barian lords.

Seven, including Vector.

(He doesn't know why, but he heard Alit’s bad attempt at a whisper once, telling Gilag that it had been Yuuma's request, and that Nasch, as smitten as he was with him, just couldn't say no.)

They all enrolled in middle school. They had the bodies for it, not aged a day past Nasch’s year, so it was a no-brainer. Vector dragged himself to classes he had no interest in taking, ignored the homework, and flunked the year before dropping out entirely. Then they all enrolled in high school.

Vector did not.

At first, he dreamt up plans to burn the mansion down, raze it until it was nothing but ash and the land was so barren that nothing ever grew. He fiddled with lighters he nicked from convenience stores with sweet older ladies tending the tills. It was so easy to take advantage of small talk, of the friendly trust between strangers, of the trick that he bought a bag of chips and slipped the lighter down his sleeve in one fluid motion as she was busy checking the ingredients for his non-existent allergies and the camera had turned away in its rotation around the store.

Then he sat in his room for days, watching the pet cat Alit had insisted upon getting prowl around the house and eventually make it’s way onto his lap as Vector stared at his bright computer screen in his dark room, paying no attention to whatever was going on behind his four walls.

“You should do something,” Mizael had once said, taking pity on him after months had gone by and they’d all settled into their happy little domestic high school routine.

“Haven’t I done enough?” Vector asked back, voice hollow and grating as the cat curled its tail around Mizael’s ankles.

Mizael had just frowned in response, before turning around and walking away.

* * * * * * *

With all his acts stripped away, Vector has nothing left. What’s the point in doing anything more when he doesn’t have a goal anymore (nothing to do, nothing to wreck except himself).

The others are probably relieved that he’s become this stagnant, this harmless, this unmoving.

He stays in his room for the most part, only really leaving it when he knows the house is empty. He can’t stand the way they look at him nowadays. Nasch still glares at him, hates him with every fibre of his being, and it’s the most normal Vector feels lately when the rest tiptoe around him like he’s a ticking time bomb about to shatter.

The cat has a name. Vector discovers this one day when he shows up in the kitchen for the first time in a week to see Durbe filling it’s bowl up with cat food. The bowl has “Alcor” written on it in thick black marker, the characters looking as if a kindergartener had tried their hand at bubble letters.

“You’re up?” Durbe asks.

“Seems so.” Vector flicks the lighter, on and off, on and off, feeling his shoulders tense up. He didn’t think anyone would be home (it had been so quiet).

“There’s leftovers in the fridge, and some rice balls,” Durbe says. “If you’re hungry.”

Vector glances at the fridge, covered in alphabet magnets and everyone’s schedules written neatly on a dry-erase magnetic calendar. “Maybe later,” he says, already feeling sick.

He waits, curling up on the couch with the cat (Alcor, the name sounds so familiar) until they’ve all left for class. He stares at the ceiling, listening to Alit and Gilag chatter about homework and classes as they tie up their shoes. Mizael checks his hair in the mirror while he waits for Durbe to finish triple-checking that all his supplies are in his bag. Nasch and Merag have already left, having gotten used to the schedule of an average schoolkid a long time ago.

When the house is quiet, Vector picks Alcor up off his chest and wanders through the house, a ghost. There are entire wings of this mansion that haven’t been touched even in the months that they’ve been living here. It’s dusty and old and annoying, with portraits of the dead lining the hallways along with sconces whose light-bulbs desperately needed replacing.

But the dark is friendly and Vector welcomes the minimal light that filters through windows overridden by vines and dirt.

The cat follows him (Alcor, Vector tries again to stick the name in his head, the name of the only thing in this entire goddamn mansion that doesn’t flinch at him) up the stairs. In the dark, he almost steps on it’s tail twice. And he does not want to do that (he’s seen the scratches up Durbe’s arms and he’d rather not deal with that). There are doors, ones that are locked, ones that have nameplates that have long-since been rubbed away.

When he reaches the end of the one hallway, he stares at the portrait that’s been staring back at him the whole time and wonders what would happen if he threw it off the wall. These people don’t exist, they’re fake relatives of fake humans and they’re dead anyway, right? Dead like he’s supposed to be. For all he knows, they were false memories planted in a false home and were never supposed to exist in the first place.

And they’re downright  _ creepy. _ Who wants to be surrounded by people who don’t exist, who were probably never alive, who Vector doesn’t even  _ know _ .

(The irony of living with the other Barians isn’t lost on him and he sneers at it all.)

He turns away from the portrait, hands digging into his pockets to find the lighter, and wonders why Yuuma allowed him to exist again. It was a bad idea. All of it was a bad idea (but did he care?), and regardless how he feels about it, he’s fucking alive by some grand redesign. It doesn’t feel natural (what about him is natural?) and after a long debate in his head, he finds himself in another wing of the mansion entirely, right in front of Nasch’s bedroom door.

It’s ornate, stupidly so, with a fancy doorknob and a plaque with the false Kamishiro name on it. It’s one of the few that hasn’t been rubbed off, instead kept clean and pristine.

On and off, on and off, the lighter flicks back and forth at the snap of his thumb, and he wonders if it’s possible to contain a fire.

He turns back around after a long moment when his eyes no longer see red, see flames and destruction, and makes his way back to his room. The one on the ground floor. The tiniest room. The only room in the entire house that feels, in any twisted way, comfortingly normal.

* * * * * * *

The rice balls in the fridge, Vector finds out, are from Yuuma. He visits sometimes, to check on them all like the good kid (friend, he claims, and Vector grimaces) he is. He always brings along a bag full of his grandmother’s cooking, insisting that everyone take some.

Vector always gets the rice balls. “They’re my favourite!” Yuuma says with a wide smile as he places a tupperware of them into Vector’s hands, because Vector decides that he should probably show his face to the kid who gave him a goddamned real chance even if he didn’t want it. “There’s lots in there, so you can share if you want to!”

Yuuma always did assume the best of people.

Vector frowns as he takes the container. “Am I supposed to say thanks?”

Yuuma just gives him a questioning look. “It’d be nice if you did,” he says, crossing his arms and pouting, acting like himself, something Vector can’t do anymore (because normal was vengeful and he has nothing left to be angry about).

He keeps them in a fridge, a sticky note over the tupperware that says “do not touch or I will fuck you up” on it in bright red marker. He goes through them slowly, makes them last till the next time that Yuuma decides to visit. There’s umeboshi-filled ones, and salmon, and beef. He likes the ones that are sweeter and tells Yuuma so on one of his visits.

“Oh really? I’ll tell granny to make you more next time!”

Vector nods slowly, his lighter clenched in one hand. “Okay,” he says quietly, flicking the lighter once, then twice. Yuuma flinches.

Mizael scoffs at him from the corner of his eye, from the breakfast bar, and Vector narrows his eyes at him. “Does Miza have a request for granny?” he asks, sickly sweet.

“No,” he says stiffly. “Just let her know we’re very grateful for the care packages.”

“Will do!” Yuuma says with a cute little salute that makes both Vector and Mizael exchange a glance.

He leaves shortly after, talking of plans with his Numbers Club crew to see a movie, and Vector holds the tupperware with an empty feeling in the pit of his stomach.

“What was that about?”

“What are you talking about?”

Mizael glares at him and Vector holds it right back at him. “Don’t you know acting like that in front of Yuuma only makes him worry?”

“Just like it’s making you worry?” Vector asks, a twist of a smirk that he forces on his lips (because this is a joke and he should act like it).

He can see Mizael grit his teeth. “What am I supposed to be then, when you trail around like a shadow,” he bites back.

“So you admit it. You’re worried too.” He lets out a bark of a laugh. Unbelievable. “Who are you?”

“I could ask the same of you.” Mizael pushes himself up from the bar and turns around. “I don’t recognize you anymore.”

* * * * * * *

It’s when Gilag discovers Saturday morning cartoons that Vector can no longer sleep through till late in the afternoon. He curses his room’s proximity to the only TV in the entire gigantic mansion. It’s on the third week of hearing the obnoxious theme songs blaring that he drags himself out of his bed, out of his room, and complains over the volume.

Gilag just pulls him onto the couch with his still-inhuman strength and slaps one of his gigantic hands over Vector’s mouth, sufficiently shutting him up. Alcor soon joins them, curling up in Vector’s lap as he’s forced to sit through ESPer Robin reruns.

“There’s leftovers on the counter. Made tamagoyaki,” Gilag says when the show breaks for commercials and he finally frees Vector’s face.

“Not hungry,” Vector says, and it’s a lie (but he doesn’t want pity).

“You haven’t been eating anything lately. You’re gonna be a pile of bones soon,” Gilag says, as if chastising a child, and Vector grits his teeth.

“I’d rather be that than this.”

Gilag shifts his gaze to Vector and looks at him (studies him) and it’s unnerving. It’s silent for a long moment before Gilag finally says, “Then eat, because if you don’t, it’s going in the trash and that’s just wasteful.”

Vector glares at him, but there’s no heat behind it, and picks Alcor up off his lap. “Fine.”

He comes back with the extra plate that’s on the counter, as if it was waiting for him, as if Gilag fucking planned this and it’s all just an ambush, and pointedly does not sit back down on the couch. The next episode of ESPer Robin is already playing, so Gilag’s paying him no mind at all. Alcor is sitting on the arm of the couch, staring at him with bright eyes.

He scoffs and turns away, wondering how far he’ll have to go so he doesn’t have to hear the TV anymore. Alcor drops off the couch and brushes up against Vector’s ankle as he starts up the stairs to the second floor. His hands fumble with the chopsticks and he tosses them to the floor. There’s something about eating with his hands again, like in his memories, that feels a lot better.

It’s good, good enough, and he eats a second and a third before letting his hand drop to his side.

And then, the cat’s ears perk up and it dashes off.

“What the fuck, Ally.” Vector mutters, because honestly, he’s given up on memorizing the cat’s real name. He googled it and it’s pretentious, to name it after the odd one out in their cluster of stars. Ally suits it better (or “stupid cat,” if she does something stupid like right the fuck now).

Vector stares after it, debating the pros and cons of running after the damn cat when he’s this tired on less than two hours of sleep because of fucking Gilag and his fucking cartoons. Fuck it.

He ends up looking under tables and behind curtains and can cats even open doors? Another question to google later because he’s too busy staring at a really suspicious bookcase that definitely hadn’t been there last time he went down this hallway and, wait a fucking second—

_ This is stupid _ , Vector thinks as he sets his plate on one of the shelves and starts pulling every goddamn book out of the case.  _ Stupid, just like the damn cat. _ The books pile up haphazardly behind him as he tosses them one by one off the shelves. Finally the awkward crescent of an indent in the carpet shifts when he grabs a thick, leather-bound volume of something Vector can’t read (because kanji is still hard sometimes even after all that human research). The edges of the wallpaper clip open on each side as the platform rotates and goddamn is this ever stupid because  _ of course _ the Kamishiro mansion has something stupid like this and—

Ally sits a few feet away from him in the new room, not even reacting to an entire wall shifting or Vector’s stream of swearing.

The wall locks back in place and didn’t Durbe have that weird obsession with that British detective show? He’d freak out if he ever—

Vector blinks and sees the room he’s ended up in for the first time and stares at it for a long moment. “Is this for real?” he asks Ally, as if the cat knows the answer (and now he feels stupid too).

It’s a library, mysteriously cleared of all must and dust and maybe three times bigger than the one on the first floor where Durbe likes to study. He knew this mansion was big, but? He sighs and slides down the column of the bookcase, sitting down on the floor.

“Want some, Ally?” he asks, pulling the plate of tamagoyaki from the shelf he’d shoved it onto a minute ago.

His appetite is screwed. He goes to bed hungry and wakes up craving for nothing, and food this early is sickening. Can cats even eat eggs? He should google that too, sometime. For all he knows, one of these books probably has the answer.

Ally tilts her head at him and he frowns. “You want me to eat all of it?”

She continues to stare at him, and thirty seconds later Vector scrunches his nose at her. “Fine.”

He sets the plate on the ground, eats a piece, and then another, and stands back up. “Stupid cat,” he mutters, looking around the library. He can’t hear the TV anymore, so that’s always a plus. No more ESPer Robin to wake him up at ungodly hours of Saturday mornings. There’s so many rows of shelves and tables and chairs, but finally Vector spots them: plump couches next to floor-to-ceiling windows that stream in hot sun. They look so tempting and comfy, that Vector finds himself standing right in front of them.

“I’m gonna sleep, so don’t fucking bother me,” he says, looking down at Ally, who licks her paw innocently. “And if you do, you’ll be sleeping forever, I can guarantee it,” he adds, but there’s no bite, just exhaustion as he flops onto the couch.

When he wakes up for the second time that day, Ally is curled up next to his chest, a warm ball of fuzz, and Vector can’t bring himself to be mad at her anymore.

* * * * * * *

Vector’s sitting in the backyard against the pillar of an old, worn gazebo, staring out at overgrown grass and vines and rosebushes. There’s been a lot of rain lately, and everything is green instead of burned to hell by the summer sun. It’s not dry enough to catch fire and burn out in a blaze.

He finds the gazebo, hidden from the world by vines and overgrown trees and bushes, because Ally has made it a habit at this point to run off randomly and Vector has nothing better to do than chase it and wonder where the hell she’s going to lead him next. The mansion’s so much bigger than he ever imagined, and Ally knows where all the cool stuff is (but hell if Vector will ever admit he  _ enjoys _ this).

Everyone’s home because school is out for a week or so. The house is loud. Vector can’t stand it, so he either stays in his room and tries to drown it all out (with little success), or goes outside. Outside works better. The sun hides behind soon-to-be rainclouds and Ally roams around, tail flicking back and forth every time a bird so much as chirps.

Outside is easier.

Until one day,  Merag decides to join him, trailing him right into the spot that he’d found with Ally, the spot that (until then) hadn’t been known by anyone else in the mansion.

“What do you want,” Vector asks, and the edge that used to be there has dulled, but his shoulders tense up and he holds his lighter a bit tighter.

“Fresh air,” she answers, as if it’s obvious, and she pretends that the cat beside him doesn’t scare her. He doesn’t know what makes her so determined to be here, where he is, where the goddamned cat she hates is, when she could just as easily have stayed the fuck inside. “Not your company, if that’s what you were thinking.”

Merag doesn’t glare at him like Nasch does, though he definitely deserves it. She doesn’t look at him with pity either. Because Merag doesn’t look at him at all. He doesn’t know what’s worse.

“So what are you doing out here?” she asks.

“Fresh air,” he echoes back. She scoffs, but leaves it at that.

She won’t leave, but he refuses to either (he was here first). He feels anger flare up in his chest and tries to breath like a normal person when she sits down beside him, like her presence doesn’t affect him as much as it does (as much as he wants to bolt, but Ally has her head on his lap and he can’t just, you know, disturb a peaceful cat).

He flicks the flame on and off, on and off, not knowing what he’s trying to accomplish, and Merag’s eyes flicker towards the sound, the ghost of a worried frown on her lips as the clouds start to drizzle.

“So,” she tries again, “what are you doing out here?”

He wants to strangle her, kind of like the last time except this time there is no cliff (no petty annoyances, no Nasch, no life or death, just oblivion). He feels his fingers flex, clench over air, and he tries to soften the edges by running them through Ally’s fur.

“Nothing,” he says. He really, really doubts she’s here for fresh air (nosy bitch).

He figures if this was one of Alit’s romcom’s, they’d have some sort of romantic revelation and sit in comfortable silence and enjoy the rain surrounded by flowers. It’s not one of those though, and the only feelings he has toward Merag are bad ones, violent ones, memories that have been long-etched into a broken mind.

“You want some water?” She starts to dig into her bag, the one that tells him that she’s probably just come back from a shopping trip, probably spent the afternoon with Yuuma’s green-haired friend. Koto…? Something. She doesn’t matter.

“I’m fine,” he says. Ally is awake again and he goes to stand up. A wave of dizziness crashes over him. He can’t remember his last meal (his last anything).

Merag’s up with him, and she takes a step back. He wonders what did it, him or the cat. But she’s still holding out the water bottle. “Take it. You look like you need it.”

Vector scowls at her, clutching onto the railing of the gazebo, and knocks it out of her hand. “I don’t,” he growls.

The bottle hits the ground and her eyes meet his for the first time in forever, caution, confusion, concern decorating them when it’s the opposite he deserves. “Then, what do you need?” Her voice shakes, but her feet are firm on the ground. Ally purrs and Merag bristles, but she won’t leave.

He wonders if she wants the truth or another lie, or if he even has the energy for another one. “To die,” he says, barely a whisper, “and never be reborn.”

Vector has always figured she’d want to do it. Her, or her brother. Doesn’t matter, either way he’d be gone and he’d deserve it. But he’s still here, still breathing, keeping himself up with the railing, and Merag’s eyes won’t leave his.

“We all will one day,” she says softly. “Maybe, you can look forward to that. Until then—”

Thunder crashes and rain starts to pound on the roof of the gazebo, drowning everything out in a deafening white noise.

“Until then, what?” he bites. “Weren’t you saying something?”

For once, she looks like the scared human girl she is. He almost pities her as much as she does him and he feels a smirk twisting onto his lips. She’s silent, feet stuck to the ground, unable to move or say anything.

“I thought so.”

* * * * * * *

Gilag sits next to him on the couch, effectively startling Vector into crashing into the floor.

“What the  _ fuck _ ,” he hisses, and Gilag shrugs, grabbing the remote from under the pillow Vector had been using and turning on the TV like Vector hadn’t been in the middle of debating life and death, flicking his lighter on and off, on and off as Ally stalked around the coffee table trying to catch a fly.

“Mind if I,” Gilag starts and never finishes, letting the theme song of ESPer Robin play as explanation enough.

Vector grunts, scrunching his nose up as Ally stalks right up to him and fixes him with the kind of cat-stare that tells him he’s being judged. “Fuck off,” he mumbles, getting back onto his feet.

He’s about to walk away, far away from this room and it’s blaring speakers and stupid Saturday morning bullshit, but Gilag’s hand shoots out and pulls him back onto the couch.

“ _ Fuck _ ,” Vector hisses, rubbing at his shoulder. “You nearly fucking dislocated my goddamn arm!”

Gilag shrugs. “If it’s a rerun, I can make you breakfast,” he says.

“Who says I’m hu—”

“I do. Want oyakodon or ozoni?”

Vector frowns. “Depends on how you’re making the ozoni.”

“Then I’ll make oyakodon.”

Vector just sinks further into the couch. The ESPer Robin theme song has already finished, commercials droning on, and Gilag’s puttering around in the kitchen. Ally must have given up on catching the fly, because she hops up onto the couch and settles into a ball of fluff on Vector’s lap, preventing him from carrying out any escape plans.

Goddamn cat.

One episode in this godforsaken special marathon of ESPer Robin later (and Vector didn’t get sucked into this stupid episodic plot, no he did not), Gilag sets a bowl in front of him on the coffee table. “Eat up.”

“Thanks for the food” Vector mutters, pushing himself up enough to grab the bowl without disturbing Ally.

“They’re playing the Heist Arc,” Gilag says, as if Vector had even asked. “It’s six more episodes.”

“Six episodes?” Vector asks through a mouthful of rice. “Jeez that’s like,  _ forever _ .”

Gilag doesn’t say anything when the marathon is over and Vector’s gone through three bowls of food all while complaining that he needs to know what happens next.

* * * * * * *

Vector flicks his lighter on and off, on and off, lying on his bed with his hand holding it up. He wonders when the lighter will burn out. He wonders if it matters (he can just get a new one, but he can’t replace his life when he’s stuck with this one).

He wants to burn out.

A pile of bones sounds appealing. A pile of ash sounds even better.

“Wanna come grocery shopping with me? I could use some extra hands.”

Vector turns his head at Merag’s voice and realizes he didn’t shut his door properly. Or maybe Ally finally figured out how to open it herself. He glances around his room and can’t find her. Goddamn  cat.

“Sure,” Gilag replies, and of course she’s asking Gilag. He’s the only one he’s ever seen actually cooking in this house. Alit only ever uses the blender for his protein shakes, and Nasch cooks sometimes (but hell if Vector will ever touch the food he makes).

They’re discussing the grocery list, digging through the fridge and cupboards to see what’s missing, what they’re running low on. Rice and eggs and fish are already on the list. Vector knows this because they have a notepad on the fridge and those are always the first three on it whenever he glances at it before pulling out another riceball from Yuuma’s tupperware.

“Hey I’ll come with you guys!” Alit jumps into the conversation and Vector rolls his eyes.

Alit’s burning brighter than ever, as athletic as Yuuma, and always invites everyone to his soccer matches because  _ of course _ he’s the star player and  _ of course _ he’s living it up. It’s so obnoxious, the way he bounces around excited about every little thing and always in and out of the house, busy with his club activities and social life.

Vector finally hears them leave and rolls himself off his bed. His stomach reminds him that it’s empty and he shoves his door the rest of the way open so he can find something to eat. Alit’s next game is already written onto their dry-erase fridge calendar and Vector gives the date a hard stare before pulling the fridge open and realizing the tupperware is empty.

“Goddammit,” he mutters under his breath, but his appetite is already fading as he thinks about going to the soccer match. The lighter flicks on and off, on and off as he debates actually leaving the Kamishiro mansion. He grimaces. Because he should show up. Because Alit keeps telling him that Yuuma’s worrying and when Yuuma worries, everyone worries (not about Vector, about Yuuma, because no one wants Yuuma to worry and everyone blames Vector and—).

He turns away from the fridge, appetite lost entirely, and ignores Alit when he knocks at his door to remind him that it’s this Saturday.

* * * * * * *

“Catch me up,” Vector says with a yawn as he takes his seat next to Gilag on the couch.

It’s normal now, but neither of them acknowledge it. Vector hears the TV on a Saturday morning and just gets up, surrendering himself to the bright cartoons and cheesy live-actions that Gilag loves so much because it’s easier than trying to drown them out and maybe (just maybe) he needs to know what happens next.

“So, Battle City right? The opening ceremonies just finished and they’re on a blimp about to find out who’s dueling first in the brackets,” Gilag explains. Vector nods, pulling his knees up to his chest, and watches on.

It’s easy to be in a room with Gilag when his attention is focused on the TV and not on him. It’s even easier when Ally shows up, joining them on the couch and nudging her head under Vector’s hand, demanding attention despite Vector’s eyes paying rapt attention to the TV.

When it breaks for commercial, Gilag gestures toward the kitchen. “Made extra if you’re hungry.”

He’s not, but he gets up anyway because he really doesn’t want another lecture from Gilag. He wonders what it is this time, and is greeted with a tray full of miso soup, tamagoyaki, and grilled fish.

“Are you going to the game later?” Gilag asks when Vector’s heating it all up in the microwave.

“No.”

“You should, it’ll be fun.”

“Fun for you, maybe.”

Gilag looks pensive, stroking Ally with his oversized hands. “Okay,” he finally says.

When Vector sits back down on the couch, tray of food balanced in his hands, he wonders why he doesn’t feel relieved.

* * * * * * *

Alit brings home polaroid selfies of him and his team holding up a trophy. Durbe tacks one onto the fridge with a random alphabet magnet. Vector fights the urge to tear it down whenever he sets foot in the kitchen.

Then Mizael graduates, along with Durbe, and their certificates also get tacked up in a neat line down the side of the fridge. Vector wants to tear them into a million pieces and set them on fire.

He stops entering the kitchen, walking purposefully around it and never stepping inside. His stomach feels like it’s caving in, but it’s fine because he ran out of riceballs anyway so it’s not like there’s anything for him in the fridge anyway.

“What do you want to eat tonight?” Gilag asks one day as Vector drifts by the kitchen, on his way to nowhere in particular (because following the cat around has become a habit even when his bones creak with the effort).

“Don’t care,” Vector says, and Durbe looks up at him from the table, glasses glinting from the too-bright sunlight streaming in through the windows.

“How do you make ozoni?” Gilag asks.

“With grilled mochi,” Vector answers, remembering middle school when he still attended classes and Yuuma forced him to join his family in New Year’s celebrations. “Kanto-style,” he adds, dredging up the memory of granny making small-talk about Japanese cuisine as Yuuma stuffed his face and Vector reluctantly accepted seconds.

“If I make it, will you eat with us?”

Vector scoffs. It grates at his throat. He wonders how long humans can last without water. It’s been four days, maybe. “If you strap me to a chair,” he says.

“I can make that happen.”

Vector doesn’t doubt that he can.

“Fine.”

And it is fine, right up until Vector sits down at the table and overhears Durbe telling Nasch about potential plans to continue on to college, and sees Merag listening raptly to Alit talk about a cute girl he met at the match’s afterparty. Vector feels Mizael nudge him and vaguely hears him ask about his day, but he’s too far gone. He wishes he never had to eat, that he never had a reason to leave his room and hear about everyone else’s wonderful fucking lives (but his body won’t let him sleep the hunger off this time and ignore it for another handful of hours, because his body is weak and human and  _ why won’t it rot already _ ).

* * * * * * *

Yuuma visits again. This time, Kaito follows him through the ornate entryway. His dumb robot is nowhere to be found. Neither are the rest of the Barians because for some reason Yuuma has decided to come during school hours. Vector had debated not answering the door at all (except he’d ran out of rice balls ages ago and goddamn was he hungry).

“I’m worried about you,” Yuuma says, without any pretenses, without even a hello. Kaito stands a little ways behind him, staring off to the side as if he’s completely uninterested (but he’s here, isn’t he? Because Yuuma makes people care when it’s the last thing they want to do).

“You shouldn’t be,” Vector says, and Kaito’s eyes shift to him, as if to say  _ damn straight _ , because who the fuck would waste time on him? (Yuuma would.)

“Well too bad,” Yuuma says, his hands clenches into fists. “Gilag says you haven’t been eating properly. And Alit says you never leave the house! And Mizael—”

“Who gives a fuck what they’re saying?” Vector snaps. “I sure don’t! They don’t care, and I hardly care anymore either, so why the fuck do you?”

“Because!” And here, Yuuma struggles, because he doesn’t know either. Because they sure as hell aren’t friends no matter what he claims, because friendship is way more than Vector deserves. He’s not obligated to come by with food every couple weeks, and he definitely doesn’t do it just for Vector (because that’s crazy and stupid and—).

“You’re a goddamned idiot,” Kaito says, breaking the silence with soft words that pierce, “if you think Yuuma is going to let you use a second chance to just waste away.”

Back-up. Of fucking course. Kaito is here because Yuuma could never do anything without his  _ friends _ backing him up, and Nasch sure as hell wasn’t going to get down with an intervention concerning  _ him _ . Vector didn’t need this. He didn’t need friends to get shit done. He didn’t  _ need _ anyone to get things done. He doesn’t need  _ anyone _ , period.

“If you’re seriously skipping school to lecture me about the way I live, then—”

“What’s holding you back, Vector?” Yuuma interrupts loudly.

Vector feels anger bubbling up in his chest and he does what he’s always done. He cackles, loudly, and it echoes through the entry hall.  _ Nothing _ , he wants to scream, because there’s absolutely nothing here for him, and no one  _ wants _ him around either and it’s all just so achingly _ hilarious _ . He clutches his face with his hands and the lighter drops to the floor, burnt out and useless just like he is with nothing left fuelling him in this world, nothing to plan for, nothing important enough to light a fire in him.

Just before he collapses to the cold marble floor, he hears Yuuma panic.

* * * * * * *

Vector wakes up to a plate of the most unappetizing food he’s ever seen in his life: hospital food.

There is no one in the chair beside his bed, no one outside waiting to see if he’ll wake up. Knowing his luck, it’s not even visiting hours yet (not that he’s expecting anyone to want to visit anyway).

He’s beyond starving. The food doesn’t even smell good. It probably cooled down ages ago. He frowns at it. And then picks up the fork.

One tasteless bite after another, his stomach finally feels a bit more than hollow. The nurses have done their rounds, noticed he’s up, called his guardian, checked his vitals (and Vector almost wishes he can stay in this bed for a few more days because he’s not ready to talk about anything when there’s nothing to talk about in the first place).

Half an hour later, he finds out that his guardian is Tsukumo Akari.

She bursts into his room, helmet under her arm, eyes burning with anger. She waves away the nurses and glares at him.

“You’re a real handful,” she says, and Vector stares at her with a furrowed brow, confused as fuck.

“Nice to see you too,” he deadpans.

“You’re being discharged today,” she says, ignoring him. “And you’re gonna be staying at our place for a bit. Granny says that if you won’t feed yourself, she’ll do it for you.”

“Oh-kay?” He’s really in no place to argue. It’s Yuuma’s sister, after all. The only real adult he vaguely knows (because hell if Kaito is one), and he’d rather trust her than a crew of dumb kids.

“Are you okay with motorcycles?”

He nods, slowly.

“Okay good,” she says with a purposeful nod. “I’ll be in the waiting room. Don’t you dare run away.”

He didn’t really plan to, but he nods his assent. Satisfied, she turns on her heel and leaves.

* * * * * * *

Yuuma’s house welcomes him like the annoying, endearing family he’s never had. His grandmother sits him down immediately at the dinner table and starts serving him from just-done pots of food on the stove, paddling out a large bowl of rice from the rice cooker.

Akari goes to her office to get back to her work, but she sets him up in Yuuma’s room first and checks up on him every hour because he isn’t home (because she sent him out and got his loser friends to make sure he stays out until dinner).

Every hour that she checks on him, she asks if he wants something to eat. Because humans are so goddamned fixated on eating, apparently, that Vector can’t seem to get out of it in a house occupied by real humans. The fourth hour, she frowns and asks, “So what happened?”

Vector thinks he’s saved by the doorbell, but when Akari comes back with Mizael in tow, he knows he’s in for a far more irritating interrogation.

They sit in Yuuma’s room. His actual room, not the dusty attic he sleeps in, but the room with bright yellow walls and large windows and a normal bed that looks far sturdier than his hammock will ever be.

“So what happened?” Mizael asks softly when Akari comes back a second time, this time with a tray of tea.

“Nothing,” Vector says, feeling hollow as Akari hands him a mug.

Mizael watches him, eyes narrowing ever-so-slightly in that calculating way of his. “Why didn’t you ask for help.”

“Because I don’t need it.”

“Everyone needs help sometimes,” Akari says, and Vector wonders why she’s still here, why she feels the need to chime in (but it’s her house, and who is he to tell her to fuck off?).

“Did you think you were beyond help?” Mizael rephrases, and Vector drops eye-contact, down to the mug that’s warming his palms.

He doesn’t answer. Mizael sighs.

“What now?”

“I don’t know.”

“You have to have some idea. You can’t just keep going like this.” Mizael’s voice rises and Vector recognizes anger, but it’s not the same kind he’s shown before. It’s not cold or distant or petty. “None of us know why we’re here either, Vector,” he continues. “There’s no reason for us to be here. The difference is that we all tried to find one and you didn’t.”

“Blaming me now, huh?” Vector asks, amused. He feels laughter bubbling up again and forces it back down, trading it for a grim smirk. “I’ll let it pass, after all it’s habit right? It’s always me. I’m always at fault. I’m used to it.”

Mizael glares at him. “It’s not like that and you know it.”

“Then what is it?”

Mizael takes a deep breath, fingers curling over his knees. “We want to help you find it. Your reason for being.”

* * * * * * *

Dinner with the Tsukumo’s is a loud affair, because as soon as Yuuma comes home (Alit right on his heels), his grandmother ushers them all to the dinner table. There’s a literal mountain of rice balls (“Yuuma said you like the sweet ones, dear.”) and an array of dishes set out because Vector eats so little that no one knew his favourites so they made everything “just in case.”

It’s overkill.

(It’s embarrassing.)

Alit and Yuma flank him at the table, piling his plate high with calamari and stirfry and pouring more curry onto his rice and yeah, Vector guesses it looks appetizing enough, but can he even finish all this food? And Mizael sits across from him, slowly picking through his own plate as he watches Vector chew each bite, as if to make sure he’s swallowing.

“I was so worried about you!” Yuuma tells him. “I can’t believe you starved yourself into passing out, you literally just? One second you were standing and then the next—”

“I’m surprised you didn’t get a concussion, man!” Alit chimes in, clapping him on the back. “Like, those floors are  _ marble _ . You’re lucky you didn’t hit your head.”

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” Yuuma adds, as if he hasn’t said it like fifty times since he walked through the door and crashed into him for a hug.

And Vector doesn’t do hugs.

(Mizael just whispered at him to deal with it. He can cleanse himself later.)

Akari and that weird house-cleaning robot clear the table and their grandmother starts packing food away in takeout containers and all of it is overkill (but who are they to turn down free food when Nasch only knows how to make two kinds of curries and Gilag only ever cooks Japanese).

They leave the house with three big bags worth of food and Vector gets another bone-breaking hug.

“Don’t be a stranger,” Yuuma says, and Akari gives him a Look that says he better follow through with actually calling (for help or otherwise).

“I won’t,” Vector says, because everyone is expecting it, and he doesn’t even know if it’s a lie anymore.

* * * * * * *

When he gets home that night, trailing behind Mizael and Alit, fingers cramping from the weight of the bag of food he carried back, Nasch answers the door.

They stare at each other for a long moment. Vector had been avoiding him for months now, and here he is like the final nail on the coffin.

“So, you feeling better?” Nasch asks.

Vector scoffs. “When you’re dead, maybe.”

There's a break in the air, a tension that disappears, and for a second Nasch actually looks amused.

“Welcome back, asshole.”

**Author's Note:**

> this took literal months to edit and change and add to and you know what i was so tired of looking at this doc that i decided it was done and now here you have it and i really hope you enjoyed!!
> 
> sorry for any random typos but i was too exhausted to do one last edit and yep, this was really exhausting. okay.
> 
> piper out.


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